


And Stretch Your Wings Southward

by Moorishflower



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-20
Updated: 2010-06-20
Packaged: 2017-10-10 05:05:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/95795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moorishflower/pseuds/Moorishflower
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Sam is hit with a spell that causes him to grow wings, it becomes apparent that he'll need more help than his brother or Castiel can offer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And Stretch Your Wings Southward

  
There's only so much an explanation can prepare you for.

You can tell yourself that you're going to die in twenty-four hours, and you'll spend a stupid amount of that time convincing yourself that you're at peace with your life, with the decisions you've made, but that still doesn't change the fact that, when that twenty-four hour mark arrives, you're still going to go out kicking and screaming. Because an explanation cannot fully prepare you for the immensity of death.

Nor can it prepare you for the inevitability of wings.

"I'm gonna grow wings," Sam says, because obviously he must have heard Castiel wrong, he'll be…maybe he'll be throwing up _stings_. Like, scorpions. Except that doesn't make sense, and also it would probably be really painful. And Sam doesn't like scorpions.

But Castiel is shaking his head.

"The spell was very specific," he intones, and Sam buries his head in his arms while Dean paces behind him. _Wings._ Wings, like a bird. Like an _angel_, except not really, because angel wings are made of sound and infinite space and boundless energy compressed into a form that sort of vaguely resembles wings, or Salvador Dali's interpretation of wings, anyways.

And Sam isn't just going to wake up with them there. They aren't just going to appear, already attached to his shoulder blades.

They're going to _grow_ on him.

~

At some point, Dean becomes desperate. It's probably somewhere around the time when the middle of Sam's back begins to bulge outwards, the obvious shape of something growing beneath the skin rippled and alien-looking.

It doesn't hurt, he reassures Dean. It's sort of uncomfortable. Heavy, where there shouldn't be heaviness; covered texture, where he's used to the smooth line of his back. He has to sleep on his stomach or sides, now, or else he'll crush the burgeoning wings, and the way Castiel explains it that would sort of be like a fetus dying in the womb. His body would expel the wings in the most violent and convenient way possible, and he would probably die of septicemia. Sam doesn't like the idea of being a winged freak (as opposed to an ordinary one, he guesses), but he also doesn't want to die.

But Dean becomes desperate. He snaps at Castiel and he hovers protectively, and Sam can only imagine what the motel manager thinks is going on in this tiny little room, because half the time Dean is yelling and the other half Sam is whimpering in increasing discomfort as the wings grow bigger, and bigger.

Dean begs for Castiel to do something. To angel-mojo them away. To make his brother normal again.

Castiel doesn't have the strength left to heal himself, let alone Sam.

But they all know someone who does.

~

Gabriel arrives during the second week, when Sam looks like he's going through some sort of bizarre reverse-pregnancy, the shape of the wings a shield upon his back, pressing against his spine. Gabriel arrives, and Castiel nods at him, respectful, and even Dean looks…not happy, but at least willing to compromise.

"Nope," Gabriel says, when Dean asks if the wings can be removed. "They're welded on pretty tight. I'm no Healer, and trying to yank these puppies out by the roots…well. Spinal damage would be the least of your worries."

"What about just…cutting them off," Dean tries, but Gabriel shakes his head at that, too.

"They'd only grow back. Think of them like dandelions: even if you cut off the head, as long as the roots and leaves are still there, they'll keep growing. And I'll bet you anything they'll grow back all stunted and deformed, too."

Sam's pretty upset about having wings, but he doesn't want to add insult to injury and have hideous, _useless_ wings instead of ones that might, conceivably, be helpful to him in some way.

"I can help you get them free, though," Gabriel offers, when it becomes apparent that they have no options left. "Make it easier. Take away some of the pain, heal the inevitable blood loss."

"Blood loss," Dean says faintly.

Gabriel gently lays a hand against Sam's swollen back, the wings shifting uneasily beneath the pressure. It's the first time since this whole crazy thing started that someone has touched him _there_, and Sam is stupidly, pathetically grateful. He doesn't even care that even that light touch hurts him.

He's distantly aware of Dean staggering to the bathroom, hanging his head over the toilet. Castiel follows him, soothes him by running a hand up and down Dean's spine.

"Having wings ain't so bad," Gabriel says quietly.

"You wouldn't know," Sam murmurs. "Yours aren't like this."

~

It only takes three weeks for the wings to grow to full size, and by then Sam has developed a fever; he can barely move with the weight pulling him down, can barely stand to touch his own skin for the pain that any sort of pressure brings. Even moving his head sends a lance of agony through him. He lies in a useless heap on the too-small bed while Dean brings him water and soup, while he alternately sweats and shivers and the wings pull taut against his body. They are so large that the skin around them has begun to turn translucent, spider-webbed with thick blue veins.

"Pretty sure it's safe to get these bad boys out of you, now," is how Gabriel announces that he's ready. That Sam's ready.

Sam whimpers into the pillow.

"Go, Dean," he manages to say. "Wait outside."

"Sammy – "

"_Go_."

Dean goes, and takes Castiel with him. Sam is thankful for that – he doesn't want Dean to see him in pain. Dean tends to make stupid decisions whenever Sam is hurt, or in trouble, and this whole mess is Sam's fault anyways – he'd pushed Castiel out of the way, even though he knew that the spell probably wouldn't affect an angel as much as it would affect a human.

"Deep breaths, kiddo," Gabriel murmurs. "There's gonna be a lot of blood."

"Kinda figured that," Sam breathes. And then, "They hurt."

"They'll feel better when they aren't all cooped up next to your kidneys. I promise."

Sam keeps his face pressed down into the pillow. He doesn't want to see what's going to happen.

When Gabriel starts cutting (and Sam isn't sure what he's using – a laser? The power of his mind?), Sam is almost certain that he'll die of the pain long before he ever dies of blood poisoning or nerve damage or the sheer _stress_ of having these things attached to him. It's agony; it's like someone doused his back in lighter fluid and then set him on fire. It's like having your blood replaced with fire ants. He can _feel_ the wings shifting around beneath his skin, straining to get free as Gabriel makes incision after careful incision, Sam's skin parting like rice paper.

It's like having a splinter just beneath your palm, and being able to feel it moving around, but unable to pull it free. Sam cries out into the pillow, holds the cotton between his teeth and tears at it as he feels warm blood trickle down his sides, spattering up over his shoulders. He distantly wonders how they're going to explain this to the motel manager, and then remembers that they have Gabriel. Gabriel will fix it. He'll fix everything.

"C'mon, Sammy, I need you to try and move them."

"I can't," he hears himself sob. "It hurts."

"I can't just reach in and yank them out, idiot, you need to _help_."

Sam doesn't know the first thing about how to move these new appendages. His _wings_. He's felt them shifting, before, in instinctive response to things like warmth and cold and pressure. But he's never tried to control them. He tries to think of how they connect to his spine (and that's where they're growing from – not his shoulders, nothing like a bird, but from high up in the center of his back, from an elaborate construction of bone and sinew and cartilage that was never there before), tries to think of them as another pair of arms, or legs. Something less alien.

"It isn't rocket science, Sammy," Gabriel says, and Sam _lifts_.

_This is probably what giving birth feels like_, Sam thinks. His thoughts are muzzy with relief, because as soon as the wings are free of his skin he can _tell_. Like being forced to carry a heavy weight for weeks, and then being told you can set it down. Like lancing a boil, or finally pulling out that splinter. The reprieve from the pain and the pressure is instant, and even though Sam knows he's still bleeding everywhere, knows that he's still _hurting_, it's lost in the sheer, overwhelming sensation of no longer being weighted down.

The wings spread themselves out, damp with blood and some clear, sticky fluid that Sam isn't even going to think about right now. He can tell right away that they aren't feathered. He examines the bare curve that he can see out of the corner of his eye while Gabriel runs his fingers over Sam's back, sealing up carefully-made cuts, all the lost blood seeping back into Sam's body.

"They aren't bird wings," Sam mumbles. They aren't like any wings he's ever seen before, not in pictures and not in real life. They're huge arches of bone and tissue and what looks like _scales_, rainbow-colored like an oil slick, blacker than black until the light hits them just right.

Gabriel snorts.

"They'll be useless for flying," Gabriel says. He carefully prods one; it twitches. Sam can't control it. Nor can he control the sudden surge of _regret_ that fills him. He won't be able to fly. He'll have gone through all of this for nothing, absolutely _nothing_. What use are wings if you can't use them to fly?

"They look like they'll make damn good weapons, though," Gabriel continues.

Sam blinks.

"What?"

"See for yourself."

He hears Gabriel snap his fingers, but that's only secondary to the large mirror that appears beside the bed. It's tilted at exactly the right angle for Sam to see…to see…

His wings. Not just a glimpse of an edge of one, but his wings in their entirety. He wasn't wrong when he assumed them to be huge – they must be at least a dozen feet across. Useless for flying, yes, but what Sam had thought to be scales are actually ridges and shelves of bone, sharp as razors when Gabriel draws his finger across one of them and shows Sam the resulting line of blood.

And Jesus Christ, there are _spines_.

"Sturdy," Gabriel compliments. "You hit someone with these, they won't be getting up again. Not right away, at least. Besides. If you wanted to fly, you could have just asked me." Gabriel tilts his head into Sam's line of vision, leering. "Of course, we might have to talk recompense…"

Sam's left wing extends so fast that it knocks Gabriel off the bed entirely, sends him tumbling to the floor, laughing like a loon all the way. The wings are _strong_.

"Hoo, boy! Told you! You can do some _damage_ with those suckers."

Sam had really been looking forward to…to flight. To the idea of flying. Feeling the wind rush over him.

But, as he looks down at Gabriel, he can't keep himself from smiling back, and thinking that, maybe, this isn't such a bad compromise.


End file.
